Best Practices for Dealing with Workplace Violence

Workplace violence is one of the most serious issues facing the American workforce. Workplace violence manifests itself in a multitude of ways. Threatening to carry out or carrying out an act of physical violence, intimidating, harassing or disrupting the activities of colleagues at the workplace come under the definition of workplace violence.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that up to two million Americans get affected by violence at the workplace, an alarming piece of statistics for one of the world’s most highly developed nations, in which the workplace is central to most peoples’ lives.

Mixed picture of workplace violence statistics

Since general awareness about workplace violence went on the ascendant in the 1980’s, there has been a remarkable dip in the incidence of workplace homicide, which is surely the most serious form of workplace. Killing a colleague over a difference at work is certainly the most barbaric form of workplace violence.

OSHA put the number of workplace homicide for 2014 at just over 400, which, although is a figure that has been steadily falling over the years; is not negligible. The bad news, however, is that other forms of workplace violence, such as intimidation, discrimination, bullying, hostility, and harassment, have been steadily rising over these few years.

Workplace violence is not taken seriously enough by employers

The tragedy about workplace violence is that a majority of the cases go unreported. As much as 60% of crimes committed against women at the workplace didn’t get to the enforcement agencies in the form of complaints between 1993 and 1999.

What is of equal worry is that nearly half of corporate executives don’t consider workplace violence as being serious enough to warrant intervention. Two thirds of American executives do not believe that workplace violence will create a negative impact on their budgets.

Many organizations are far behind in taking measures aimed at tackling workplace violence. Organizations need to identify the factors that precipitate and trigger workplace violence. Some of the most common factors that are directly linked to workplace violence include:

Confrontational behavior of a few employees

Exchange of money, which could lead to bitterness that could turn into violence

Serving alcohol in the office premises

Targeting people who work in lonely or remote locations at odd hours

Women at the workplace, who are vulnerable to becoming targets of workplace violence

Completely outmoded laws

A major problem facing the American workplace today is that most laws and methods of dealing with workplace violence are pretty outdated. Many organizations continue to be governed by rules that were made when workplaces were vastly different from those that we see today. The workplace before the advent of the New Economy was far different. Cybercrime, for instance, was unborn a few decades ago. Another of the outlets for initiating workplace violence, the social media, was also not born at the time of formulation of many of the laws that govern many organizations. Yet, the laws and rules on workplace violence have failed to keep pace.

Complete learning on dealing with workplace violence

So, how do organizations deal with workplace violence in the current scenario? All these aspects of how they can do it will be the learning a highly valuable, yet entertaining webinar from TrainHR, a leading provider of professional trainings for the healthcare industry, will be offering.

This webinar will have Dr. Gerard Lewis, an international consultant and trainer, who has worked with national and international government agencies, healthcare facilities, educational institutions and private businesses on a wide range of work, behavioral health and organizational issues; as speaker.

In order to gain full understanding of the area of workplace violence and to get an understanding of the ways of dealing with it, please register for this webinar by visiting TrainHR

Viewing this webinar, its entirety qualifies for a recertification credit hour that may be counted toward SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification from SHRM. Credit is awarded based on the actual educational time spent in the program. This webinar has been approved for 1.5 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR, PHR, PHRca, SPHR, GPHR, PHRi and SPHRi recertification through HR Certification Institute (HRCI).

Updating policies to stay current

Dr. Lewis will show how organizations can stay current with their policies and protocols to include workplace violence as a major part of the agenda. He will offer a comprehensive overview of best practices for organizational hostility mitigation and the role of HR.

Participants will be able to understand best practices for responding to workplace hostility, be able to provide policies, procedures and programs to their client-organizations, know the current changes in statistics as well as terminology relative to this ongoing issue, and understand how and when to provide psychological interventions around workplace hostility incidents.

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